Photo: Tuomas Sitonen
16 players, €3,500 prize pool, one day of competition - these are the days for the first Hearthstone LAN event of the year.
The competitive scene of Hearthstone is about to waken from its holiday slumber as the plans for the first major tournament of 2015 are already in motion. On January 30th, Blizzard's card game travels to Helsinki, Finland to the Assemby Winter grounds where approximately $4,100 await the winners.
This is the second time Hearthstone will be featured in the Assembly itinerary. Last year, Finland's LAN circuit held the local qualifiers for the IeSF 2014 World Championship, another one day tournament which saw Janne "Savjz" Mikkonen, then of team Curse, come on top, defeating Aleksi "Wampie" Majander 3-0.
This time around, however, the tournament proudly wears the Assembly tag, which suggests that Hearthstone might become a part of organization's eSports circuit. Assembly, whose tournaments are traditionally held twice a year, have a long history of doing eSports events, mostly in StarCraft 2, and this month they will be hosting their ninth tournament in the popular RTS.
If CCG competitions are to become a regular Assembly discipline, a new and exciting tradition would be created for Hearthstone fans, adding more high profile tournaments to the calendar. In 2014, the offline Hearthstone events were mostly held on DreamHack soil - who are yet to announce their 2015 plans - but other long-time eSports organizations like ESL's Intel Extreme Masters also showed interest in the game, hosting two events throughout the year, one in Katowice, Poland and another in Shenzhen, China.
Naturally, the announcement of Assembly Winter for Hearthstone doesn't provide any details about a possible summer event (those are usually held in August) but what they promise for the January 30 competition should be enough to glue fans to the screens. Starting today, players are encouraged to apply for a direct invite to the tournament, and those who don't manage to get it will have to test their skill in the upcoming qualifiers. A total of 16 players will compete in a double elimination group stage, feeding into an 8-man single elimination bracket.
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